With Rolling Stone's "A Rape on Campus" article now discredited and retracted, the fraternity implicated in the alleged gang rape is pursuing legal action, but not against the article's main subject.
The University of Virginia (UVA) chapter of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity confirmed to the Associated Press they will not pursue student conduct code violations against "Jackie." Any UVA student accused of violating the honor code goes before a panel of fellow students, facing expulsion as the only possible punishment.
It is the oldest such system at any U.S. college or university and violations fall into transgressions related to lying, cheating and stealing.
"From the fraternity's perspective, this is about reckless reporting, careless editing, poor fact-checking and a negligent legal review," Brian Ellis, a spokesman for the UVA PKP chapter, told the AP.
Jackie told Rolling Stone she was attended a PKP party in Sept. 2012 as the date of a fraternity member. She said he led her to a dark room where seven other members took turns raping her as part of what she believed to be an initiation rite. The magazine's article also focused on UVA's response to her complaint, or a lack thereof.
But after a number of publications began finding several inconsistencies in the article, Rolling Stone acknowledged they made certain mistakes in reporting and verifying the story. They retracted the article after the completion of a Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism review deemed it a "journalistic failure" in an exhaustive review.
The Charlottesville Police previously determined there was insufficient evidence to support the events as Jackie described to Rolling Stone. It was not until the Columbia report's release that the UVA PKP chapter confirmed they would pursue legal action against the magazine.
Per UVA's conduct code, any student could bring a complaint against another. The AP learned no student has done so with Jackie.
